Man Swallowed By Hippo, Lives To Write About It
Templer was a 27-year old river guide who had lead tours down the Zambezi many times and had weathered several of what he considered “half-hearted attacks” by a certain territorial male hippo. Those half-hearted attacks gave Templer no clue as to the potential viciousness of the bull, who attacked one day, apparently out of the blue. The vicious assault killed an apprentice guide before turning on Templer who had approached to try and help his co-worker.
“There was no transition at all, no sense of approaching danger. It was as if I had suddenly gone blind and deaf,”Templer wrote in The Guardian. Templer did not immediately understand what happened to him, though. He wrote:
Templer was able to wriggle free, but the hippo attacked again, dragging him back underwater. Templer doesn’t know how long he was under (“Time passes very slowly when you’re in a hippo’s mouth”) before the hippo spit him out and Templer was able to make his way to the surface where a coworker awaited.
Templer suffered close to 40 puncture wounds in the attack. Some of the bite marks were so deep his lung was exposed. His arm was crushed and was eventually amputated. After he recovered from his injuries, Templer bravely returned to his job as a guide.